It only hurts a little all the time
by RemedyChill
Summary: Here's a little coming of age and facing your fears fic featuring Kurt. Darker way more violent than most Evofic. This plot line resumes in “Brunch with Mutants” .
1. Default Chapter

I don't own the X-Men: Evolution charectors or any rights what so ever. Now take your big bags of money and go! Sniff, sniff  
  
"It only hurts a little (all the time)." A not for profit X-Men Evolution story set in the not too distant future by Remedy=Chill  
  
Kurt walked down the long empty corridor of Bayville High. Life had been kind to him. Or so he told himself as often as he could. He lived in a nice place with people that really seemed to try to care about him. Even when he got double detention for arguing with Mrs. Brickman.  
  
Of course, her answer was, technically, in the answer book listed under ANSWER.  
  
And his answer was driven by an understanding of holographic technology that's far superior to any the world has ever seen.  
  
So you can see the source of this confusion.  
  
"Vie could teach her a ting or tree about phy-siks." He grumbled out loud, half startling himself. "I mus-t be tired." He concluded out loud. "I'm talking to myself."  
  
Just then he looked up to see the principal standing in an open doorway and listening intently.  
  
Kurt shoved his hands in to his pockets and redoubled his pace.  
  
She simply stood there and very slowly, shook her head back and forth.  
  
"Stu-pid Self." He grumbled as he left the building.  
  
Scott was supposed to pick him up but the professor sent him to New Hampshire with Hank McCoy at the last minute. What Hank was going for had been the source of much speculation and rumor but nothing more believable than Jubilee's 'Space Monster' theory.  
  
And then it happened again.  
  
Kurt saw two people holding hands. Suddenly his hands felt too big for his pockets. The sight of all those fingers, meshing between two hands, was somehow so alien and disturbing that Kurt had to clench his fists to keep his fingers from twitching at the sight.  
  
Of course they noticed him. Of course they looked, and of course, they watched him walk away and out of sight.  
  
Kurt could feel the desire to mope. It was strong and seductive.  
  
Instead he took his hands out of his pockets and looked down at them. He saw five fingers. He turned them over and still; He saw five fingers.  
  
But he knew better.  
  
He knew it when he was getting in and out of the shower and he would catch sight of himself in the mirror. When he was wet the smooth area's like around his eyes blended in with the fuzzy areas like his beard and sideburns. The hair and the skin color are identical and at times, especially when he's just out of the shower, he looks like a seal or a dolphin.  
  
"Or Mystique." He winced at the thought and collected himself to begin moping. He carefully surveyed the traffic before crossing the big intersection that runs through town. Once across, he proceeded to throw himself headlong in to the mope.  
  
"In za purfact vorld, BAMF! And home." He gestured to the heavens with his hands. Not only were his powers only strong enough to teleport him within line of sight, but then there was the whole 'Murdered by Angry Crowd Etc." (Or: M.A.C.E.) Scenario that looking like a demon somehow seems to inspire in others.  
  
And the word rolled through his mind again "Demon."  
  
The people at the mansion were kind. They called him an elf. He appreciated it. Appreciated a lie that masked his separation from them. Masked his true form.  
  
But Kurt was not blind. He recalled seeing demons in 19th century woodcuts on a museum field trip. He remembered seeing his tail and hair depicted as the most obvious features of the Devil. He remembered trying desperately to steer Kitty and the others away. So that they would not see them.  
  
And he remembered how he failed.  
  
He remembered watching Kitty's face as she found the woodcut familiar. Watching her place her had absently at her chest and how she began to play with her necklace, and how she then just turned toward him and lowered her head in a silent apology.  
  
That was what had gotten to him later. She Knew! Knew he had been trying to keep them away, trying to keep HER away. Trying to be normal.  
  
Kurt looked down at his right hand as he walked. It still had five fingers. It was still lying.  
  
He turned the back of his hand to face him and he cocked his head at it. It was so real. So believable. But go a head and try it sometime. Take hold of a hand with three thick fingers that feel like velvet on the back and a well-worn leather moccasin on the palm and try to tell yourself it's normal.  
  
"Six fingers." He thought. "One hand and one extra."  
  
He shook his head at himself just as the principal had. He was trying to fight the memory but it refused to submit. It was time to relive it again, like it or not.  
  
He remembered being numb as Kitty walked away. Seeing how she understood. How she would have just respected his wishes if she had known. How she never meant to hurt him.  
  
And he understood. For all that to have been going on behind the scenes, for her to see right through him, she must know what he was most afraid of. Certainly she stood on the treacherous precipice of all his worst fears. Surely, all it would take to see it would be one clear day and the right eyes.  
  
And he shook his head to clear it. He was one block from Graymalkin Lane and from there it was three blocks north and up the worlds longest driveway.  
  
A few rain drops flicked him in his face and threatened have their friends follow him home.  
  
"Go a-head." He whispered to the clouds. "You know you vant to." And for a moment he thought it was funny. He was slowly rising out of the woods of despair. How could Kitty see what he really feared? She's not him. Understanding how a bad picture or a bad likeness might effect a person is a far cry from understanding a person's ultimate fear.  
  
And then the rain began, and as the large, cold drops began to fall, so too did Kurt's mood. And his mind insisted "Why not remember the rest?"  
  
And he knew he had little choice.  
  
He hadn't bothered to watch the others as Kitty walked away. His attention was solely on her and her reaction. He didn't hear Bobby and Evan as they had idled up behind him and stopped to stare at the woodcuts.  
  
And he knows Bobby didn't really mean it when he asked Evan if they "Knew this guy?" And pointed toward the devil.  
  
"Lay off." Evan told him, smiling just a little.  
  
"I don't know. It looks like a family relation to me." Bobby tried to look at Kurt without letting Kurt know.  
  
"I'm just saying, if you're on this guy's team, who do you think is on the other?" Bobby can find the humor in anything. Sometimes the rest of us have trouble following along.  
  
Evan knew. "Way uncool." He told Bobby right before walking away.  
  
And when Bobby turned to ask if Kurt understood that he was kidding, Kurt agreed. He smiled wide. What problems could a person have in this life when you're the spitting image of evil incarnate? "Com on!" Kurt told him "I've got to pose for a-nover voodcut in tventy min-utes."  
  
And they walked away. And they laughed.  
  
Maybe Bobby did feel bad. He spent the rest of the trip trying to make Kurt laugh, although it was a long time before he laughed genuinely and for real.  
  
The rain had been torrential and visibility dropped to about eight feet in front of Kurt's face.  
  
Kurt could make out the shapes of the street lamps as he passed under them, but as it was still dusk, they were not yet turned on. He shook his head to knock the hanging drops of water off his hat and he pulled his jacket closed around his neck.  
  
The wind was whipping up and freezing him anew with every gust.  
  
And Kurt reached a calm place inside. Although the storm raged all around, his mind was silent and focused. "Vouldnt tit be great if ze all knew?" He had never really considered it before. "If I could talk to zem, tell zem what I know."  
  
Kurt winced. He hadn't meant 'what I know'. He had meant 'what I'm afraid of'. He closed one eye and walked in to the wind and rain.  
  
Of course they would tell him what he knew to be real: What kind of person he was. Things he had done.  
  
But was that all there was inside? What kind of package comes wrapped like this?  
  
They would say how absurd and outright laughable to think that Kurt would or could be EVIL.  
  
It was so laughable that he had to disguise himself for the rest of his life. So laughable that he will be forever removed from having a normal life. So laughable that his appearance scares children and the subtle smell of brimstone that hangs around him drives animals to whine and whimper as though he were a walking disease. So laughable that he will probably spend his life as an X-Man and die as an X-Man.  
  
A car whipped by and covered Kurt in a sheet of dirty water from off the road.  
  
"Tank-you!" He called after them, waving his lying hand "Vor not running me o-ver." He looked at the vanishing taillights before adding "Dis time."  
  
And finally he found it; The driveway. It was the final sign of journey's end. Secretly he had been hoping to see it for the last two blocks. Most of which felt like two football fields because of the weather.  
  
And he approached the house out of the rain and the night. He stalked up to it like a hunter who's given up on diplomacy and has decided to go down shooting. It had all been too much. The wind, the rain, the memories, the feelings. It was all too much.  
  
By the time Kurt got to the doors of the mansion he was a new man. He wanted to breathe smoke like the poor bastard in the woodcut, be he man, mutant or devil. Kurt wanted to frighten, to intimidate, and to do all those things that his friends thought him incapable of.  
  
Kurt wanted to show them. He wanted them to know. He wanted them to be prepared. Just in case.  
  
And an idea occurred to Kurt. Something that would burn off all this malaise and put the world back in to perspective. Provided it didn't kill him.  
  
He marched through the mansion doors and left them open. He dropped his wet leather backpack in the hall as he passed his room. He pulled off his hat and jacket and threw them in to one of the Professors red leather chairs. He kicked off his shoes and walked down the hall in his wet socks. "Oh yeah." He thought. "Love da zounds of da three toed foot" as he slapped his feet down the hall.  
  
He stopped only in the small locker room to finish getting out of his clothes and pull on a dry uniform.  
  
"I want to fight now." Had he really said it? Did he just walk right in, interrupt a class, and attempt to pick a fight with the instructor? He had indeed and the fight was on.  
  
At first it all happened too fast to describe. Kurt managed a series of multiple teleports that resulted in a series of landed blows that left Wolverine little time to respond. Then he saw the pattern and got his hand out before Kurt could reappear.  
  
Wolverine grabbed the elf by the back of his head as he emerged out of the smoke and beat him in to the wall twice before Nightcrawler managed to teleport behind him and, bracing himself with his arms and tail, he kicked with all his might and both feet.  
  
Everyone gasped.  
  
Wolverine fell, although he could have stopped himself, but not without relying on years of experience. And this wasn't about winning. He could see it in the elf's eyes. Maybe it was about getting up when you didn't think you could. And maybe the elf just needed to know that everybody gets knocked down.  
  
Of course, try explaining that to the mutants at the Xavier house, who stood safely behind the Danger Room's great clear windows and cheered and jeered almost at random in some sort of fevered excitement.  
  
And then it happened.  
  
Wolverine took hold of Nightcrawler's foot as he leapt for safety. Using his superior weight as an anchor, Wolverine held on to Kurt, intent on using Kurt's own momentum against him. This time it was for real. Wolverine was ending it.  
  
He thought.  
  
Because Kurt had come again to that place of fear within his heart and he knew it now as he had never know it before. He knew it well enough to show them all.  
  
He spun on a dime to face Wolverine and using his superior musculature, before he hit the ground, he coiled himself in to a ball, rolling down his own leg and Logans arm, finally managing to slam down with all his might in to Wolverine.  
  
Wolverine was completely taken off guard. He had never seen Kurt do anything remotely similar. It looked positively inhuman. And Logan went down in a sprawl, thanks to the ferocity of the hit and the mockery that Kurt made of his balance.  
  
Everyone in the booth went silent for the stretch of one heart beat..  
  
Wolverine was off his feet. His back was to Nightcrawler. Wolverine makes a point of never turning his back in a fight. He was really taken down. This was getting serious.  
  
Kurt wasn't sweating. He had been freezing on the way home and now he was numb and only beginning to warm. He could feel their eyes on him from across the room. He leapt high, out of Logan's reach as he recovered.  
  
And so Logan popped out his claws.  
  
And every heart in the booth stopped. Logan had fought and trained with all of them. He never used his claws unless they were essential to the exercise.  
  
And he swiped at the elf who managed somehow not only to avoid the swipe but also to smack the back of the blades, tauntingly, as they passed. Maybe no one in the booth saw it, but Wolverine did. The elf had it all over him for maneuverability. Had his claws been swords or knives, Kurt could have taken them away by now.  
  
"I don't know what this is all about for you kid." Wolverine told him. "But you give it your best. I'll heal if you mange to. . . "  
  
But it was done too quickly.  
  
Kurt swept up on Wolverine with twice the grace of most cats. He made one fluid motion that tipped Wolverine backwards, just enough so that Kurt could catch Wolverine on his hip and begin to toss him. Then, as Wolverine was falling backwards, unbalanced and rolling off Kurt's hip, Kurt teleported.  
  
He reappeared above Wolverines head. His hands had the falling Wolverine by the shoulders, and for a moment he did a handstand on the falling man, just because he could. Then he fell, quickly, tucking himself under Wolverine, rolling with him, despite the extra weight of his adamantium frame, planting his feet to Logan's chest and catapulting him toward the great observation window.  
  
Everyone within stood frozen and slack-jawed for a long moment. Then they scattered. People dove for exits and under the controls. Everyone, including Wolverine, thought he was going through the windows.  
  
But he didn't. He hit the window soundly and with a slight acrobatic recovery, he landed on his feet.  
  
"That's all for tonight everyone." He called out, taking a breath or two "Kurt, don't be late next time."  
  
Kurt nodded. He was still numb, still cold. His hair was damp and it hung in his eyes. He brushed it back, looking at his reflection in the observation window. He looked ferocious. Like an animal at night. Something you wouldn't taunt. Someone you don't want to know.  
  
And then his vision shifted to look inside the booth.  
  
Most everyone was gone. Bobby continued to throw punches and kicks at Evan in an attempt to narrate something they both already seen, despite Evan's protests.  
  
But there in the back of the booth, standing alone, was Kitty.  
  
Her smile shone to him like the morning sun. It wasn't worried, concerned, or forced. Not like he might have expected. It was something else. Not coy, or seductive, but something was most definitely there. Some thought that once named would reveal the truth of that smile to him.  
  
His focus shifted again. This time it was to Wolverine who had stepped up, blocking Kitty from his sight.  
  
"You get that all out of your system Elf?" He asked rubbing his neck.  
  
"For to-day." He tried to smile but Logan saw there was truth in the statement.  
  
"This wasn't personal, was it kid? I mean I didn't do anything to. . . "  
  
Kurt interrupted him.  
  
"No. No." He waved his hands in between them and shook his head. "I just remember you saying, back during orientation, that if anyone feels the need to, you know, fight? We should come to you."  
  
"Yeah, that was kind of a threat." He nodded twice and saw Kurt's dismay begin to rise "And a valid offer. Anytime you find it necessary." He smiled at the funny little blue man. "I never knew you had it in ya." He shook Kurt's hand and walked out of the room.  
  
But when Kurt cast his eyes back to the booth it was empty and he was once again alone.  
  
He headed for his room, exhausted, and reclaiming his mess as he went.  
  
He was wholly unprepared to find Kitty waiting for him in the hall outside his room.  
  
"Kurt?" She seemed to be looking for the right words and could only come up only with his name.  
  
"Ach. Kitty. How are you?" He felt suddenly shy and exposed. As though she were seeing him naked.  
  
"I wanted to talk to you Kurt." She looked as though she had found a place to begin. "I thought you were crazy. No one in his right mind would interrupt Mr. Logan's class by asking to fight him Kurt. It's not sane." She motioned at her own head as though demonstrating some imaginary problem with his.  
  
It made Kurt appreciate the thought that someone you know may have gone a little crazy.  
  
"And I thought, just for a second, that you. . . " She looked at his forehead and avoided his eyes "That you might have done it to impress me." She didn't let him respond "But now, I know better Kurt."  
  
She looked briefly away from him, as thought she couldn't gather her thoughts while looking at him.  
  
"Now I think you did it because it's you." And she bit her lip, as she looked him in the eye. "It's who you are Kurt. Someone who can stand alone against Wolverine, oh hell Kurt, you won that fight. You beat him." And that smile was back. The same one he couldn't fathom through the safety window. That was the emotion; it was pride.  
  
"And I'm real glad that you're on our side Kurt. And just that you're my friend."  
  
She took his hand and held it for just an instant between them as an awkward sign of affection before she turned quickly and disappeared around a corner, her ponytail bouncing along behind her.  
  
Kurt turned and opened his door. Once inside he dropped his wet clothes in a heap at the foot of the bed and climbed in to the shower. He wasted no time in believing that hot water was a greater treasure than most people would ever know.  
  
He climbed out of the shower and saw himself in the mirror. He looked like Mystique; there was no doubt about it, except for a little around the eyes. He had never noticed that before. There was something different about his eyes. Something that made him look less like Mystique and more like. . . Himself!  
  
He stood there for a moment, considering himself in the half-fogged mirror.  
  
He looked. . . Honest.  
  
And with that thought in his mind he pulled on a pair of pajama's and climbed in to bed.  
  
And Kitty's voice echoed through his mind "And just that you're my friend" it said and he smiled as he wrapped himself in the covers.  
  
"Just that. You're my friend." It said as he began to drift off to sleep.  
  
"Just friends." She said in his mind "We're just friends."  
  
Kurt rolled over now feeling quite awake again.  
  
"Ach." He told himself. "Shut up al-ready!" And he pulled the pillow down over his head. 


	2. It hurts too much all the time

It hurts too much (all the time)  
  
  
  
"Where it began, where it began." The voice grumbled to itself in the downpour outside the mansion.  
  
"Where, how, why and now." The voice spoke as though it were a child speaking rhymes. Then the being shook with a silent, insane laughter.  
  
He flexed his powerful hands as he stood in the rain. His mind ran over details of the mansion. Details of the X-Men. Smiling faces. Memories like photo's, flooding back until there is no sense and no recognition. So much information. So many things to consider. It was all too much. It was a like being blinding by light.  
  
When you know too much, it can cripple you.  
  
He moved slowly, savoring the steps, towards the mansion.  
  
Something told him that in his youth he crossed this lawn. His thick heavy tail dragged through the grass and muck behind him as he lumbered to the top of a familiar hill.  
  
Didn't he play here? Didn't he laugh? Wasn't it real?  
  
He shook his head, now unsure.  
  
Didn't he remember having friends?  
  
And he word teased through his ancient mind. "Friends." No. There were never any friends.  
  
There had been business deals and partnerships of convenience. But in the last two thousand years he could not remember a friend. When he laughed now he laughed alone.  
  
If there had ever been friends they were from the beings 'pre-historic' period; Memories so old and degraded by long life that a whole new intellectual entity had arisen from the tattered remains and newer experiences.  
  
But somewhere inside a suspicion nagged at the being. He treated these suspicions as proof of his own impending insanity, which had already settled in ages ago unnoticed. But sadly these suspicions were instead the result of the last threadbare piece of soul the being possessed.  
  
"No!" The suspicion called out. "Healing! Wellness! Stop!"  
  
And the suspicion was heard, then ignored.  
  
"Tick, tock, wait till it's dark." He told the suspicion mentally.  
  
He had watched all night as the lights in the mansion winked out one by one. Darkness, concealment, cover. It was all he had been waiting for. This entire side of the mansion that faced him was now dark. And he crossed the lawn leisurely, he found himself lost in some strange and vague nostalgia, that he couldn't quite fathom.  
  
Would there still be a key under the mat? Would Evan still be leaving his window unlocked? Was there ever a key? Was there ever a mat? Would the window ever leave Evan unlocked? Wasn't his name Ethan? And who was he if there were never any friends?  
  
And as he opened the downstairs double doors the smell of the place hit him. He stopped dead in his tracks.  
  
No friends? Somehow that seemed ridiculous now. How could there have never been any friends?  
  
But in a moment he had become accustomed to the room and distracted by its warmth. And his mind twisted and turned on itself in fear. There were so many reasons to have stood in this place. Was he going in or coming out. Was he late for class or far too early? Did he have his books? Did he do his homework? Did he kill his friends?  
  
And a bitter smile came to the aged face, revealing a sleek and worn pair of fangs. Did he kill his friends?  
  
That must have been it! He had killed them all! He remembered the killing. Lots of killing in fact. So much that he couldn't keep track of it all. So much that the details stopped being important. Faces and numbers in a mass beyond words. Was it a daily practice? Monthly? Did he save it up or meter it out, as he felt necessary? He wasn't sure. Not really. But there had been so much killing. This had to have been the answer.  
  
He had killed his friends.  
  
He felt so relieved. Of course there had been friends. Sure. Friends.  
  
He looked up the staircase. It seemed so small to him now.  
  
Surely it was wide enough for him to pass, but he would have to duck low, so as not to scratch his horns on the ceiling.  
  
But where would he go? There was so much to do.  
  
But what was he supposed to do?  
  
"N't N'w" He chastised himself, bringing his stained black claws up to clutch absently at the thick armored skin of his face. As he tried desperately to remember what he was supposed to do next.  
  
He ran his claws down to his chin, and then down the long bony protrusion that came out under his chin, much like the beards worn by the Ancient Egyptians.  
  
His great dull gray eyes survailed the room. There were no clues here. No answers.  
  
He had wanted to go up the stairs and down a hallway. There was something he was supposed to do. Something secret. Something important.  
  
"Tick, tock, tick, tock" He thought absently "Find the girl and fix the clock." That didn't quite seem right though.  
  
"Walk through rain and back again." And his mind tingled with recognition. That had been a part one of the poems he made up to remember things. But how did the rest go? What was he supposed to do next?  
  
He stood quietly, trying no to remember, but rather just to let the rest come to him.  
  
"Walk through rain and back again." His lips curled slightly. "To the place where things began."  
  
This was exciting to him. This meant he was close.  
  
"Find the child, sleeping tight." He shivered inside with rising anticipation. "With eyes of sun and hair of night."  
  
He seemed to recall it more clearly now. It was all coming back to him. This was important. This had to end this now.  
  
"Creep up quiet in the night and pinch it out like candle light, " He remembered now. Of course. Again, with the killing. "And in this all is right. I'm sure of it. I'd stake his life."  
  
"Life, wife, strife, knife." He added mentally. Then his eyes opened wider as the idea appealed to him.  
  
"Oooooohhhh." He thought, reaching for his belt. "Yes, " He seemed barely to breathe until he found it and drew it up from it's sheath. "Knife." His lips twisted in to a large lizard-like smile and he moved gracefully up the stairs and down the hallway on all fours, his tail thrashing side to side, and his knife in his teeth. 


	3. It hurts too much not knowing

Kurt lay in bed, fading in and out of sleep. It did not seem to come easy tonight. Perhaps too much had gone on.  
  
The moments he would wake were like snapshots of the room, illuminated by the large red digital clock.  
  
Each "Snapshot Memory" looked much like the one before, the most common exception being the steady advancement of the minutes or hours that crept by casting various shadows around the room.  
  
It seemed a fairly odd thing that at two thirty seven the door should suddenly be open.  
  
And closed again by quarter to three.  
  
Were the shadows of the room shifting in between each waking moment? Was he having trouble sleeping, or was he hearing things that woke him?  
  
Kurt took a deep breath and tried to shake away the cobwebs of sleep. Didn't he shower after his workout with Wolverine? What was that smell? Kurt went to lift his arm in an effort to eliminate himself as a suspect.  
  
Something took him by the wrist and held his arm down. It was strong and forceful yet the touch was different than any Kurt had felt before. Certainly the skin was rough and thick like the hide of an animal, but this touch was somehow more natural and reassuring than any Kurt had ever known. It caused him only to stir from sleep and not to jolt awake.  
  
Kurt felt the need to yawn and as he did he came fully awake and tried to sit up. Then the creature was on him. A rough hand pressed him down in to the mattress and pillows, covering his mouth, and threatening to break him under it's great weight as the creature rolled atop him.  
  
The great evil face leveled its eyes in to Kurt's from just a few inches away.  
  
"Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jog!" The creature thought, letting the boy get his first real look at him.  
  
And of course, the boy's blood ran cold. It wasn't just the twisted, broken horns that curled up and away from his temples, or the three smaller horns that grew up between them from the center of his forehead. Nor was it the reptilian skin that stretched over the face, skin the color or blue steel. It was not the great cloudy gray-white orbs or the snake-like fangs.  
  
It was the undeniable fact that he knew this face. He brushed its teeth and hair on a daily basis and fed it junk food at every opportunity. It just looked like someone had run it over.  
  
Kurt tried to scream but the creature was using its leverage to keep him from breathing properly.  
  
When the creature saw he was trying to scream it showed him the knife.  
  
And Kurt was paralyzed with fear. His body and mind were trying, on all engines, to teleport away, but it was not happening.  
  
Then the creature indicated to it's own forehead. Kurt's eyes followed and he could see there was a red mark in the form of a diamond just between its eyes.  
  
"H'm" The creature said, obviously not accustomed to speaking out loud.  
  
Kurt's mind recoiled terror. He did not have enough information to even form opinions. Wouldn't it have hurt him by now if it had wanted?  
  
And just then the knife flashed between them and Kurt felt a surge of warmth around his neck. He heart shifted in to a form of overdrive he had never used before as he struggled against the superior weight of his opponent.  
  
In return, the creature simply stared, smiling greedily, deep in to Kurt's eyes.  
  
Kurt sat up quickly. He was alone, in his bedroom, and it was morning.  
  
Sun shone through his window and be blinked himself awake.  
  
A brief chill ran through him. That was quite a dream. He had never had one like that before. He hoped to never have one like that again. He stood up, sore from his fight with Wolverine, and stretched.  
  
He was smiling when he looked in to the mirror. But his humor did not last. Because, quite obviously, a patch of skin in the shape of a diamond had turned from blue to red, just above and between his eyes.  
  
Kurt stuck his head out in to the hall once he was dressed. The hall seemed deserted, but he shoved his hat on all the same.  
  
He wasn't really sure what to do next. He remembered when Beast taught them about psychosomatic illness and how a great shock could make a person's hair loose it's pigment. And the dream had in fact been just that; A huge shock. Maybe that was all it was. He knew that in most cases color returns with new hair growth. But until then it was a zit. Or so he told himself, not quite wanting to admit that having red skin made him somehow even more stereotypical of evil. Not wanting to say that it didn't matter if he wasn't red all over, that this way, everyone would see it but him. They would be reminded every time he looked at them, and because he couldn't see it, he might forget from time to time that it was there.  
  
And he knew those moments of reminder would break his heart. He could just see it happening, peoples eyes reaching up when he would finish speaking, Seeing the dark man with the red skin. . .  
  
He shivered to his core.  
  
And he was suddenly overwhelmed. A tidal flood of memories surged forth. Memories that hadn't happened. Things he knew could not possibly be. Memories that only could have come from the future. From the creature in the night! But how could this be? What did it mean?  
  
And the images flickered and spun, enclosing his senses in an ever-changing swirl of remembrance. Kurt went to swoon.  
  
"Whoa there." Scott came up behind him and caught him, bringing him to his senses.  
  
"Ven did chu git-bach?" Kurt recovered his balance and stood up.  
  
"Last night. Too late for the big fight though." Scott snickered sadly, as thought it were a sight he would have treasured.  
  
Kurt felt his skin flush.  
  
"I'm jus sore." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I vas trying to tretch a cramp hout."  
  
Scott nodded, dubious, at the possibility. And his attention was caught b something on Kurt's arm. He reached out and grabbed it, pulling his fur.  
  
"OW!" Kurt pulled back reflexively, rubbing his arm, but trying to see what Scott had in his hand.  
  
It appeared to be a Band-Aid and cotton-ball, which had been crushed in to the interior of his elbow. "Gross!" Kurt rubbed his arm with his Thumb. There was a sore spot, just at the spot the Band-Aid had covered. "Vot da?" He looked at Scott, his finger racing the spot.  
  
"Who knows where you picked this up?" Scott threw it in to a near by trash can. "Once, I spent half a day with toilet paper stuck to my foot before Wolverine told me about it."  
  
"I re-member." Kurt told him, holding his arm close and turning away.  
  
When Kurt threw a glance back, Cyclops and the trashcan were gone. 


	4. It hurts too much to know

Kurt rounded the corner closest to where Cyclops had been standing just in time to see the grandfather clock in the Professor's study pulling itself closed like a door.  
  
He cocked his head to the side and shot out an expression that seemed to say "Iz zat so?" While knowing full well that it was not so at all.  
  
He heard the wheels of the Professors chair coming down the hall and then he heard the low rumble of Logan's voice. They stopped when they saw him.  
  
"Kurt." The Professor smiled. "I heard you had a remarkable session in the Danger Room last night."  
  
Kurt couldn't help but smile. "Ya, y-ou kno-w, I vas lucky."  
  
"More like focused." Wolverine crossed his arms over his chest "You tossed me twice real good Elf, and I know for a fact that luck wont get most people anywhere near that far." Wolverine had the Elf by the eyes now "I KNOW what I SEE in you Elf. You've got potential."  
  
Kurt felt his skin flushing and so he quickly shrugged, grinned, and excused himself.  
  
"Vas tree times by my c-ount." He thought as he rounded out of sight.  
  
And it seemed that his embarrassment might have irritated his red diamond patch, as he had a tremendous urge to rub it. Then his paranoia kicked in. What did Logan mean "I Know what I See in you."  
  
What did he see? What did he know? What was behind the clock in the Professors Study? And what was up with Scotty Cottontail (Grab that cotton and turn tail and run!)?  
  
Then a voice in the back of Kurt's mind whispered "Two times three, what did they see. . .The clock, the wolf, and the run-ning bun-ny?"  
  
And as Kurt shook his head to clear it, he shook away only the nonsensical rhyming, and not the drive or desire to know.  
  
He doubled back on himself as quickly as he could. Logan and the Professor were closing the study door and talking lowly inside.  
  
"Damn shame this had to happen. Any of it." Logan said, traces of hurt in his voice.  
  
"Indeed, but we must now face up to the possibility that Kurt is now who we hoped he was. Quite the opposite in fact." Xavier sounded worried.  
  
"Listen. I like the Elf. If there's no other way, I want to be the one to do it." Logan let the statement hang out in the silence of the room.  
  
"I'm not sure that's wise." The Professor commented after a moment.  
  
"Listen, last night in the Danger Room. . ." Wolverine was cut short.  
  
"I have come to the conclusion that, given the magnitude of what we're dealing with, there will be multiple . . ." He hesitated as though the words were distasteful "persons involved." He concluded.  
  
The room fell silent behind the door as a soft creak indicated that the clock was again opening.  
  
"So it's tomorrow night then?" Wolverine asked gruffly, as though trying to mask the emotion of his tone.  
  
Xavier let out a slow exhausted sigh. "It is indeed my friend." And he sniffed as though he were on the verge of a sob. "God have mercy on us all."  
  
And the clock eased closed again.  
  
Kurt found himself sitting on his heels, leaning back against the study door. He might not have been completely sure what they were talking about, but it most definitely did not sound good or happy in any way. And he wasn't sure he'd ever heard Xavier make any kind of appeal to God before. AND THEY HAD MENTIONED HIM BY NAME!  
  
He took two long deep breaths and released them slowly.  
  
He knew where the answers were, and where he had to go to get them; behind the clock.  
  
"If to-morrow ni-te is 'IT' then to-nite I see what's doun der." He decided before getting up and heading off to breakfast.  
  
And that night he waited until everyone was asleep. He crept slowly around the inner folds of the mansion until he had arrived outside the Professors study. The door was locked.  
  
He tried to stifle the noise, which seemed incredibly loud to him, but didn't seem to bring the house running. "BAMF!"  
  
And he was in the study.  
  
He had only to pull the clock by it's body to open it. A stone staircase spiraled out of sight. He took hold of the handrail and noticed another rail that perhaps the Professors chair might attach to, so it could slide down the stairway.  
  
He crept around the cool passage cautiously. He wanted to retreat when he heard the voices and saw the light, but instead he simply froze and listened.  
  
"Oh my stars and garters." Beast sighed.  
  
"You know, if you say that every time you find something, it starts to lose it's meaning." Scott sounded annoyed.  
  
"Lots of things seem to be losing their meaning around here Scott." Beast had a tired, worn tone in his voice.  
  
"I just put my faith in the Professor." Scott replied.  
  
"He's just a man Scott. He can make mistakes too." Beast stretched out and Kurt could hear his joints cracking "And this time?"  
  
Scott jumped on the verbal opening "This time what?" He asked "This time he's basing his decision on everything we know, most of which you've told us. You examined that THING. You're the one that said it was Kurt, hell Beast, you did the DNA comparison. Give or take a few thousand years of natural evolution."  
  
Kurt was listening intently from the shadows. Could it have been real? Could that thing have been in his room?  
  
Scott was still grousing "You identified the residual time travel energies left on the body, so we know that Kurt goes back in time, several thousand years, and somehow lives through again until the present day."  
  
"Yes. I actually think I may have discovered something else about that." A few computer clicks later Beast continued. "See this, right here? It's a sign of genetic manipulation as applied to Kurt's aging process."  
  
"What kind of manipulation are we talking about? How extensive?"  
  
"He could have theoretically lived forever." Beast sighed again.  
  
"But kept evolving, becoming more like. . . Like that?" Scott sounded disgusted.  
  
"Yes Scott. He would have kept growing."  
  
"Then the Professor is right. Stopping Kurt now would stop everything he's about to become." Scott sounded reassured. "Even if the rest of it is just circumstantial."  
  
"Circumstantial? Rest of it?" Kurt wondered. "Vot do hell?"  
  
They had fallen silent, and Kurt was overcome with the desire to round the last corner and look in to the room. He crept slowly and close to the ground. He drew his head in to the light and looked up.  
  
There he saw his own mutated and mutilated body lying on a cold metal table. Him, as he would look in too many lifetimes to come. His throat was laid open his head hung too far back. His arms hung lifeless off the table, and one leg hung askew, because it was resting on his massive lizard-like tail.  
  
Kurt stood up slowly, trying only to see what instraments surrounded the ancient him on the table before him, just for the hope of getting a glimpse of what they might have been doing to 'him'.  
  
And he immediately wished he had not.  
  
The wall behind the body was full of diagrams, drawings, charts and references of all kinds. All depicting one thing; The Devil.  
  
Someone had spent a lot of time and energy cross-referencing pictures and descriptions of the Devil through out history with this future image of Kurt. A chart on the wall mimicked Darwin's 'apes in to man' by beginning with Kurt, rising to the dead Kurt on the Table, and indicating that eventually he would have had wings.  
  
Kurt's head began to swim. He had to sit down and breathe deeply. And suddenly a memory returned. The creature had set on him, cut it's own throat and stared deeply in to his eyes. He had felt electricity course through him and he remembered fighting to get out from under the other him.  
  
Eventually he had teleported. He had told the Professor. Shown him. And the Professor quietly had Scott and Logan assist in cleaning it up. He didn't want to upset the other students. He wanted to keep it quiet.  
  
He wanted Kurt to get a shot, to help him sleep, and after he had the shot, and every thing was cleaned up, Xavier wanted him to forget. He told Kurt, to forget.  
  
Kurt clenched his fists in rage. How dare Xavier do such a thing?  
  
He stood up, intent on walking around the corner and demanding to know everything. He stepped out, and found himself staring across the room at the very same 19th century woodcuts he had seen on his museum trip. He immediately recoiled.  
  
"Dear God," He whispered "Vat if it's me?"  
  
And as if in response a voice inside him called out "Not your self, no, not your self, who will you be if you cant be the Elf?" And deep inside Kurt shook in terror as he climbed silently and on all fours up the cold stone staircase.  
  
  
  
  
  
Authors Note: Stay tuned faithful reader! We're heading for a knock down, drag out, mansion shaking good time when that little voice inside Kurt's head decides it's in charge and starts earning him a reputation to die for! You wont want to miss the dramatic ending to the battle for Kurt's soul! Coming Soon! 


	5. It hurts no more

Kurt stopped short of the top of the stair. Light was coming in to the passage from under the clock. Someone was in the room. He fought back the urge to panic and listened intently. Someone was walking around the room.  
  
"Trapped." The little voice in the back of his mind said, bringing a prickly heat to the diamond patch on his forehead. "Trapped, capped, mapped and strapped."  
  
Images rolled through his mind as the voice spoke to him now. He saw himself in the stairwell, caught on both ends, ready to be dissected, like he was already just downstairs.  
  
"Trapped, capped, mapped and strapped." The words went through his mind again, this time followed by peals of mad laughter. And it was funny. They couldn't catch him. He was a teleporter! And his mood began to lighten with the absurdity of it all. The madness of the whole idea seemed to take him and then shake him.  
  
He reached up and ran his hands through his hair, hoping to at least look presentable if discovered, only to make a discovery himself; Horns.  
  
Two small nubby ones at the temples and one long central spike in the middle of the forehead with two tiny similar ones on either side. He couldn't even hide them under his hair. They were all just in front of his hairline, and all he could do was pull his hair back and show them off.  
  
And that was funny too. Hysterical. Rediculous. It made no sence and perfect sense. Didn't he always suspect it could come to this? Hadn't he always known?  
  
And when Wolverine opened the clock and cast his eyes down, what do you think he saw?  
  
Nothing more that a set of animal horns vanishing in to a puff of blue smoke.  
  
And something about the horns made it easier to teleport and changed the noise it made. It now sounded like an exagerated exhale of breath and not a book slamming on a table.  
  
And from behind it was easy to topple the little man down the stairs.  
  
Kurt whipped around, his eyes glowing with anger that hjs life should have come to this deadly turn, and yet desperate to treat the situation with the absurdity it deserves.  
  
He leapt, spinning completely around, to land in the middle of the room. Slapping the spade of his tail quite intentionally across the stunned face of Charles Xavier.  
  
"Why don't chu FORGIT dis happen-d Chal-lee." He mocked before bounding out of the room.  
  
And he wasn't gone for a moment when he felt the Professors telepathic call go out. But, adding to the insult, he was not being spoken too. He was only aware of the signal and the fact that he was no longer included.  
  
Two seconds later the mansion burst to life around him. Kurt knew only that he was attempting to get out, by any route nessesary. Thunder crashed overhead and he looked up to find Storm hovering just above the floor, blocking his path. She was weilding the winds and drawing lighting from the air, preparing to stop him.  
  
He 'ported as soon as he saw her, and as she cast her eyes around for a target, stepping further and further in to the room, he sprang out of a closet, grabbed her by the wrist, and twisted her in to the small, cramped space. He issued a soft kick to knock the air out of her and when it did, he swept the door closed from the outside and propped a chair under the knob.  
  
Something inside was laughing hysterically. Kurt was trying to remember why it was a bad idea to lock Storm in small places. But all that laughter. It was so much better that thinking about bad things any way.  
  
The storm outside went mad. Wind began to rattle and shake every window in the mansion. Lightning began impacting explosively and at random around the property. Rain and hail came at all angles. In a moment, lighting had sent the house in to darkness and the voice in Kurt's mind redoubled it's laughter.  
  
Darkness, concealment, cover. It was all it had been waiting for.  
  
And suddenly Kurt was Kurt no more.  
  
"Kurt no more, even the score, kill my friends, all over again. . ." And a memory came to him.  
  
A distant memory of a girl who's smile had shone like the sun to him. Who's pony tail bounced away behind her happily. "Yesssss." The new Kurt thought.  
  
"We were just. . ." His mind reached for just the right word "Friends!"  
  
And oh, how devilish and intimate it seemed, how wonderfully decadent and indulgent. Surely, she could see, that any life she lived would be trivially short compared to his anyway. Wouldn't it be better if she died in some important way? Some memorable way? Memorable to a person say 2000 years from now? Wouldn't it be better if the first person he killed were just that special?  
  
And suddenly the dark and wild madhouse around him seemed not a place to flee. Instead, it seemed like a home.  
  
Meanwhile, X-Men were wandering the mansion in search of Kurt, many of them on their own and completely in the dark. 


	6. A little pain is good

Evan was working his way down the hall. Someone else must be in this wing of the house, he hoped. The world outside seemed to have gone mad. Hail had put out many of the upstairs windows, and the wind was whipping through the house, stirring curtains and shadows on the walls.  
  
"Hello?" He called out "Anyone?"  
  
"Ya." The darkness replied "I-m he-re"  
  
"Kurt?" Evan (or was it Ethan) replied, casting his eyes around to find the voice. "The Professor. And the others, they're looking for you man. They say you're sick."  
  
"Se-ek?" The voice paused as though considering.  
  
"Yeah. The Professor, he sounds worried." Evan told him.  
  
"Maybe." The voice paused again. "Maybe ve shoul-d tell him I vee-l fine."  
  
"Sure." Evan cast his eyes around the room "Kurt?" He called out again "Where are you man? I can't see you."  
  
And a mad laughter rocked the room for just a moment.  
  
"Oh, Goo-d H-ide-a." Kurt whispered from far too close to Evan's right ear. "Gue-ss Wh-o?" He asked, sounding not as all like himself, and clawing at Evan's eyes from behind.  
  
Evan let out a high pitched scream that seemed to slow the storm outside for a moment and then redouble it's fury.  
  
"And dun't call m-e a ma-n. I'm no-t a ma-n." Kurt grabbed Evan up by the back of his head and heaved him violently toward the stairs. "Now, Tr-y no- t to die." Kurt told him "I'm try-ink to do dis right."  
  
And Evan painted a bloody trail by going face first down the stairs. Much to Kurt's delight he was convulsing and moaning in pain when he reached the bottom, so he was quite obviously not dead.  
  
"I'm sorry it had to come to this Elf." The low voice rumbled from the hallway. "But if someone's got to put you down it might as well be someone who cares."  
  
"Tou-ching, re-ally." Kurt covered his heart and let his head fall liltingly to one side.  
  
And Wolverine dove with a startling speed, his claws sprang in to place. He felt Kurt's hands close around his wrists but Wolverine thought little of it, it was too small for the Elf to flip him in here, and he was too heavy to stop by simple force.  
  
Of course, he never dreamed anything like this could come from Kurt.  
  
Kurt teleported, taking Wolverine's hands with him.  
  
Logan pulled the bloody stumps up in front of his horror stricken face just as the Elf materialized behind him, sinking the three adamantium blades, of his own left hand, through Wolverines midsection. And then, kicking Wolverines knees out from behind, and driving the claws deep in to the floor, pinning Wolverine to the ground as he collapsed forward.  
  
"I mus-t hur-ry." Kurt whispered, fearing Wolverine would die too soon and ruin his plans, he turned down toward Kitty's room, and sprinted off, still carrying Wolverine's right hand and claws.  
  
In the back of his mind a small voice called out "Here kit-ty, kit-ty, kit- ty. Pret-ty Kit-ty, Pret-ty Kit-ty Pret-ty Kit-ty." And it brought a rough sardonic smile to his face immediately.  
  
Kitty heard the Professor's telepathic warning. She knew something was horribly wrong, what with the weather outside and the occasional screams from within the mansion. Could this really all be Kurt's doing? Surely the Professor could be wrong on occasion, right?  
  
And when she heard Kurt calling to her she knew it must have been wrong, all of it. He sounded hurt, and nearby. Kitty edged around the doorframe cautiously. Until she saw Kurt crumpled on the floor, just down the hall.  
  
Forgetting all pretense, she ran to him, dropping to her knees, and asking him "Kurt, are you okay?"  
  
It was dark, too dark to see his clearly, but she could still see the love that shone in his eyes when he raised his head to smile weakly at her. "I'd al-vays ho-ped" He said, "H-Our first keess wouldn't be h-our l-ast"  
  
And he raised his head feebly.  
  
She leaned in and kissed him very softly, fearing now for his life and safety, hoping only to comfort him until help arrives.  
  
His three fingered hand cupped her head close and he kissed her more passionately, drawing her in closer by running his fingers down the back of her neck.  
  
She barely felt a thing, save for surprise, when he brought Wolverine's claw up between them, sinking it in through her stomach and up, under her ribs.  
  
She pulled back, registering only surprise to find him brandishing a twisted smile "O'v cor-se, ve cant alvawys git vat ve vant, can ve Kitty?"  
  
And with that Kitty took three quick inward breaths, the light left her eyes, and she fell forward, dead, in his lap.  
  
And Kurt suddenly sprang up, thrashing, feeling smothered beneath the weight of her and the weight of what he had done.  
  
It wasn't for a full three of four seconds until he realized he was alone, in his bed. The soft red glow of the digital clock told him he had been asleep for less than two hours. His danger-room fight with Wolverine less than four hours old.  
  
He rubbed his face and the back of his neck.  
  
"Oh, god!" He thought, smelling the odor. He picked up his wet clothes and tossed them in to the bathroom, closing the door. "Vet Elf." He shook his head to clear it "Gro-ss!" He felt wide-awake now.  
  
He slipped downstairs to the kitchen and found the chocolate milk mix and a large glass.  
  
"Trouble sleepin?" The gruff voice asked.  
  
"Ya." He said sourly. Wolverine was probably the last person he wanted to talk to right now.  
  
"Nightmares, hunh." It was a statement, not a question.  
  
"How did chu. . ."  
  
But Wolverine didn't let him finish. "I used to be the king of bad dreams." Wolverine tried to smile but something inside was weak and forced due to the true nature of the statement.  
  
"I think any time you push your limits you get new ones." Logan sat down next to him, his coffee cup smelling of some sweet liquor and the Professor's Hazelnut blend of Coffee. "And that can be pretty frightening." He eyed the elf for a moment "'specially if you're capable of being a little frightening yourself." He concluded.  
  
Kurt shook his head and squirted his syrup in to his milk. Maybe it did make sense in a Wolverine sort of way. He had shown them all that he was more dangerous than they imagined. Maybe it did stand to reason that now his fears were different now. It wasn't the fear of them finding out. It was the fear of going too far.  
  
"You don't have to talk about it." Logan told him. "I know I didn't always." He took another swig of his flavored coffee.  
  
"You-'re righ-t, I don-t vant to tal-k abo-ut it." Kurt agreed, stirring his milk.  
  
Logan smiled and stood up, walking toward the next room, a newspaper folded under his arm, and fresh cigar in his mouth.  
  
"But Lo-gan?" The Elf stopped him before he left the room.  
  
"Yeah Elf?"  
  
"I'd kee-p an eye on your claws ven ve spar ag-ain." Kurt told him, taking the first sip of his chocolate concoction.  
  
"Why is that?" Logan was sizing him up, just a little.  
  
"Be-cause I 'ave it on go-od a-tority dat I could jus' teleport avaw vits dem." He leveled his golden-orb eyes across his glass at Logan and watched the unconscious shiver of sympathetic understanding pass through him.  
  
"I'll keep that in mind." Logan replied back cautiously and shaken, his cigar hanging rather lifelessly now from between his lips. And he turned, obviously deep in troubled thought, to go and finish his paper.  
  
EPILOGUE: (Four days later)  
  
Steel flashed and clashed. It was the sound of metal gnawing on metal.  
  
"That's good Elf, Keep it up." Wolverine pushed hard, toppling the Elf who simply rolled backwards until he was on his feet again.  
  
Kurt's sword flashed in the mock sunlight of the Danger Room. He liked training with the sword although secretly, he suspected that Wolverine wanted to be sure that if he was teleporting with any steel blades they were Kurt's own.  
  
"What happened then?" Wolverine prompted.  
  
"Den it was y-ou. We fought at de top of da sta-irs." Kurt bounced and rebounded off the wall, passing over Wolverine's head and slicing down. Wolverine crossed his claws overhead and the only result was the sound of steel on steel.  
  
Kurt swept low with a leg and almost caught a piece of Wolverine before he jumped. Logan shifted to bring himself down on the elf and Kurt let loose with a side-kick from the floor.  
  
His foot planted itself firmly in to Logan's chest but didn't stop him. Instead, Kurt let loose another kick, this time to the stomach, and then vanished.  
  
Wolverine stumbled one step, but it was enough. Kurt was behind him now.  
  
Wolverine felt his left knee give as the Elf went for the takedown. A second later he became aware of the pressure of Kurt's foot behind his other knee.  
  
Using all his training and balance, Wolverine caught himself on the ball of his still sable foot and let his forward momentum become a spin that whipped him around to face Kurt.  
  
He brought a fierce backhand with him but Kurt sank low and quick, and it missed but it made Kurt retreat two steps.  
  
"And?" Wolverine prompted again.  
  
And suddenly the Elf was on him. A series of five teleports, all designed to reflexively and instinctively draw a person off balance. Each 'port was accompanied by a sword strike, the first four of which were met with the nasty edge of an adamantium blade.  
  
The fourth however was not. The sword flashed on each side of Logan and he felt nothing for the first second, then he felt the tell-tale wet warmth of a sword strike.  
  
Wolverine looked down. Kurt had slashed him across the top of his right wrist and the bottom of his left. Had he been trying to, he could have severed both. It showed an amazing control of the blade thanks to his inhuman balance.  
  
"And den h-I to-ok you-r h-ands off."  
  
Wolverine looked at Kurt quizzically.  
  
"In da dream." He added hastily.  
  
Wolverine nodded. "Right." He said, flexing his left wrist "In the dream." He adopted that look that said he had had enough for today and Kurt noticed, relaxing his stance and putting his sword under his arm to pull off his gloves.  
  
"So that pretty much did me in, hunh kid?" Wolverine smiled.  
  
"Vell, nooo. . ." Kurt felt a little embarrassed. "See y-ou la-ter."  
  
Kurt tried to beat a hasty retreat.  
  
"Well, kid, what happened. . ." But Kurt was gone and Wolverine was alone. "Kid probably killed me twice." He said out loud to no one in particular, watching his wrists heal.  
  
Meanwhile Kurt was rounding the inner folds of the mansion hoping not to run in to Kitty. He had managed to avoid her almost since he had the dream.  
  
It was not his lucky day.  
  
"Kurt!" She called out and he winced slightly before turning to face her. "I brought you notes from Mrs. Brickman's class. You've missed it almost all week." "Ih, I kn-ow." He smiled weekly.  
  
"Is something wrong Kurt?" She asked blankly.  
  
"No." He realized it was true. "No." He said again, just to be sure, and he was. Nothing was wrong. He felt his mood brightening considerably.  
  
"Y-ou kn-ow Ih've be-en tak-ing les-sons." He held out the sword, to make his point.  
  
"Yeah, only everybody's been talking about it. Mr. Logan won't let anyone watch. He closes the blast shutters on the observation room." Kurt hadn't really noticed, but she was right.  
  
"So have you learned anything yet?" She was absolutely mesmerizing some times.  
  
And Kurt stood up a little straighter and leaned in as though about to share a great secret.  
  
"Th-ere is on-e secret to vinning a s-ord fi-te." He told her, gesturing slightly to the sword so that it had her attention.  
  
"What's that?" She asked, distracted.  
  
"Stri-ke fir-st." Kurt said. "h-And mean I-t."  
  
He went to kiss her, to press his lips to hers and create a balance to that horrible dream reality, to let the man inside step out and past the insecurities of child hood.  
  
"Kitty." Scott called from the end of the hall. "You're going to be late!"  
  
And Kitty turned her head away, leaving Kurt with a face full of ponytail. "Right!" She called back "Just a second."  
  
"We're going to the mall." She told the now somewhat recovered Kurt. "Want to come?"  
  
"Nex-t ti-me." He told her.  
  
And she bounced off down the hall.  
  
"Nex-t ti-me." He told himself. "Nex-t ti-me."  
  
  
  
This plot line resumes in the (more than likely) inappropriately titled "Brunch with Mutants" by the same author. 


End file.
